Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1238 i The Week

All change at No.10: the Brexiters take over This is not how the “Johnson era” was supposed to begin, said Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday. Opponents of the new Prime Minister had predicted a “flurry of good-natured bombast” and “well-intentioned confusion”. Instead, we’ve had a display of “single-minded, focused ruthlessness”. Before taking the battle to Jeremy Corbyn this week with a series of new spending plans, Boris Johnson carried out the biggest cabinet cull in almost 60 years, replacing more than half of its members. Out went anyone who wasn’t fully committed to Britain leaving the EU on 31 October, with or without a deal, such as James Brokenshire and David Lidington. Out, too, went anyone who had backed Johnson’s leadership rival Jeremy Hunt, such as Liam Fox…

Carl Beech – the former nurse who falsely accused public figures of child sex abuse, torture and murder – was jailed for 18 years last week for perverting the course of justice and fraud. At the sentencing hearing, Mr Justice Goss said the 51-year-old, who is himself a convicted child sex offender, had “maliciously” lied to the police, and had shown “no remorse”. This week, Sir Richard Henriques – the retired high court judge who in 2016 led a damning inquiry into the police’s investigation – said police officers should face investigation for wrongly claiming, when applying for search warrants, that Beech’s story was consistent.…

Stockholm Rapper on trial: The American rap star A$AP Rocky remained in custody in Sweden this week, despite President Trump’s request that he be freed. A$AP, (real name Rakim Mayers) was arrested with two of his bodyguards on 30 June, for allegedly beating up a 19-year-old man on a street in Stockholm. Although prosecutors say one of the bodyguards struck first, the rapper – who pleaded not guilty to assault charges this week – insists they acted in self-defence. A #FreeRocky campaign was mounted in the US; it attracted the attention of Kim Kardashian West, who urged the president to intervene. Trump duly rang Stefan Löfven, the Swedish PM, offering to stand bail for Mayers, only to be told that Sweden has no bail system. He then tweeted he was…

1 Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, performed by Ralph Vaughan Williams with Sir Andrew Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra 2 Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, first movement by Johann Christian Bach, performed by The Swingle Sisters 3 Won’t Get Fooled Again by Pete Townshend, performed by The Who 4 Killer Queen by Freddie Mercury, performed by Queen 5* Messiah, Bass Aria: The Trumpet Shall Sound by George Frideric Handel, performed by Andrew Foster-Williams with Stephen Layton and Britten Sinfonia 6 Là ci darem la mano by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, performed by Lorin Maazel, Ruggero Raimondi, Teresa Berganza and the Orchestra of the Paris Opera 7 The Wings of the Wind by Owain Park, performed by The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge with Stephen Layton Book: On Food and…

One of the salient features of contemporary tourism is that it is very media-driven. Droves of visitors descended on Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Leh in Thailand, in large part because of its role as the central location of the Leonardo DiCaprio film The Beach. Similarly, the island of Santorini became one of the most popular travel destinations in Greece after it appeared in The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. And Jean-Paul Angelvin, a farmer in Provence, was surprised when Chinese tourists started appearing in his lavender fields in 2012: he had forgotten that a Chinese film crew had used them in romantic scenes for the smash-hit TV series Dreams Behind a Crystal Curtain. Today, he receives around 60,000 visitors each season. Inevitably, social media has played a part…

GERMANY Getting in a stew about not eating pork Cicero (Berlin) It doesn’t take much for Germans to work themselves into a lather over religious sensibilities, says Antje Hildebrandt. The latest ersatz scandal concerns a Leipzig kindergarten that recently decided to pull pork off the menu, “out of respect for a changing world”. Gummy bear sweets containing pork-based gelatine were also withdrawn. Cue a social media frenzy about a disgraceful “surrender to Islam”, and a diatribe from the mass-circulation tabloid Bild claiming it was done solely to placate the families of two Muslim girls. Politicians reacted by posting images of juicy grilled meat. Yet did this really signal the downfall of the West? Of course not. Yes, the kindergarten (which has since suspended the policy) was being needlessly pious: children…

Genetic testing kits are becoming ever more popular: hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are thought to have had their DNA tested by companies such as AncestryDNA. But now senior doctors are calling for a crackdown, after seeing an influx of patients who have been wrongly told they are carrying dangerous mutations. Research has found that the tests regularly give “false positives” for a mutation in BRCA genes, which increases the likelihood of several types of cancer. One patient even scheduled preventative breast-removal surgery after receiving such a result, only for it to be called off when the result was checked. “The NHS is incredibly irritated by these results, because they’re more often wrong than right,” said Prof Anneke Lucassen, chair of The British Society for Genetic Medicine.…

“People seem to be disappointed that the ethnic minority/BAME politicians Boris Johnson has selected for his Cabinet are Tories.” Comedian Shappi Khorsandi, quoted in The Guardian “The years between 50 and 70 are the hardest; you are always being asked to do things, but are not decrepit enough to turn them down.” T.S. Eliot, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “Donald Trump thinks the Bill of Rights is just one more invoice he doesn’t have to pay.” Christian Britschgi on Reason.com “Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don’t even remember leaving open.” American journalist Rose Wilder Lane, quoted in the I newspaper “Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.” Writer François de…

A burning issue To The Observer We have been going the wrong way with plastics for the last 30 or more years. The effort of collecting, transporting and cleaning them for possible recycling has largely failed, created more pollution and contributed to climate change. The idea of burning plastics and using the energy to heat our homes was proposed by the plastics company Dow more than 30 years ago: it suggested treating all plastics as “borrowed oil”. At that time, ordinary domestic waste had a calorific value of low-grade coal, so the suggestion was that this waste should be burned in plants with heat recovery, perhaps even trapping the carbon dioxide produced, rather than trying to recycle the complex mix of plastics. Today, with higher use of more complex plastics,…

Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner Wildfire 373pp £18.99 The Week Bookshop £15.99 Toby Fleishman is a 41-year-old New York hepatologist newly separated from his “self-centred” wife, said Katy Guest in The Guardian. Dating, he discovers, is much changed from when he was last single: New York is now “crawling” with women who want him, and he can barely keep up for all the explicit selfies and offers of casual sex. “So far, so very Philip Roth,” said Siobhan Murphy in The Times. Fortunately, however, “Taffy Brodesser-Akner is one step ahead”. As the perspective broadens to reveal a “messier, sadder bigger picture”, and as Toby’s “carnal carnival” comes to an end when his wife suddenly disappears, Fleishman Is in Trouble proves itself very different from what we expected: it’s…

The Current War Dir: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon 1hr 48mins (12A) Underpowered drama with Benedict Cumberbatch This star-laden period drama, a Weinstein Company film which features Benedict Cumberbatch as the inventor Thomas Edison, has had a troubled history, said Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph. It was meant to be released two years ago, but got kicked into the long grass after the Harvey Weinstein scandal. And now it has finally reached our screens, it doesn’t feel worth the wait. The plot centres on the battle between Edison and his rival George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) to get their respective electrical systems accepted as the national standard, said Olly Richards in Time Out. That might be interesting in a book, but it hardly makes for compelling cinema. We are told that the original…

Jack Latham at TJ Boulting Bohemian Grove is an ultra-exclusive retreat in northern California frequented by top politicians and business leaders. Such is its almost mythological reputation for secrecy, conspiracy theorists have devoted considerable energy attempting to “expose” the supposedly shadowy goings-on inside. Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist who runs the website Infowars, made his name after breaking into the site’s grounds in 2000. In this exhibition – titled Parliament of Owls – photographer Jack Latham has created an intriguing body of work exploring the often outlandish theories around Bohemian Grove, and the strange conclusions suspicious people come to when confronted by blanket secrecy. His black and white photographs take in images of deserted car parks, isolated figures in grotesque masks, the vast redwood forests that surround the area…

Shula tells Alan she wants to be ordained after all. Alan agrees to arrange for her to meet with the diocesan director of ordinands. Emma and Ed visit their house. Ed loves seeing Emma look so happy. Jim comes home all cheery from birdwatching with Robert. Alistair seizes the moment to ask if he wants to report Harold to the police. Jim doesn’t want to. His whole life would become about what Harold did to him. Adam offers Ed a bonus to thank him for his hard work. Tim collars Ed at work, saying they need to get rid of the weed killer. Ed asks him to leave. Tim stops at the estate and introduces himself to Will. He offers Will the weedkiller and Will realises he’s the man Ed…

The New Inn Coln St Aldwyns, Gloucestershire (01285-708080) Coln St Aldwyns would surely be a shoo-in winner in any contest for the “Most Quintessentially Cotswoldy Village”, says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. But unlike nearby Bibury, it’s never overrun with tourists because you can’t get a coach down the high street. The charming and friendly village pub, the New Inn, having survived for some 500 years, has recently had a refit, has new staff and a new chef – and, unusually for a “rural gaff”, the bar is open all day, every day. It is, then, the perfect place to take shelter when the weather disappoints. We visited on just such an afternoon, and enjoyed some excellent and relatively adventurous snacks: crispy bits of chicken with chipotle sauce;…

Turkish resort town Stay at the lovely Idas Park Hotel, in the centre of Içmeler, for 4 nights on an all-inclusive basis. From £315pp, including flights from Birmingham. 0871-943 1344, holidaygems.co.uk. Depart 3 September. Croatia’s Dalmatian coast Spend seven nights at the Amadria Park Hotel Ivan, close to Aquapark Dalmatia, from £734pp b&b, including Glasgow flights. 01733-224808, thomascook.com. Depart 18 September. Cuban multi-centre trip Three nights (b&b) in Havana, with a city tour, and 7 nights (all-inclusive) in Varadero cost from £1,199pp, including London flights. 020-7612 7237, affordableluxurytravel.co.uk. Depart 6 September. Five nights in Taipei Stay at the CU Hotel Taipei, situated next to the famous Ningxia Night Market, from £1,130pp b&b, including Manchester flights. 020-8974 7200, travelrepublic.co.uk. Depart 8 September.…

The pound continued to fall on currency markets, sinking to a 28-month low against the dollar, after government ministers toughened their stance on Brexit – outlining that a no-deal outcome is “now a very real prospect”. In a change of tone, the CBI also appeared to accept the possibility. Director-general Dame Carolyn Fairbairn said businesses facing “a daunting new reality” should meet the challenges “in a new spirit of pragmatism and flexibility”. The falling pound helped push the FTSE 100 to its highest level in 11 months, boosted by a flurry of takeover deals. The US Federal Reserve was expected to cut interest rates at its meeting this week, but by less than the 50 basis point cut that President Trump has been calling for. Traders in Britain began pricing…

Gerard Lyons The former economic adviser to Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London is now the “bookies’ favourite” to become the new Bank of England governor, said Jill Treanor in The Sunday Times. If so, expect a shakeup. Currently an economic strategist with Netwealth, Gerard Lyons has written about “the scope for more borrowing, a review of the Bank’s 2% inflation target and a rethink of regulation”. As an outsider and “a believer in the opportunities of Brexit”, he could be just right for the job in the new status quo, said Jeremy Warner in The Sunday Telegraph. On the downside, he has “no experience of running a large organisation” and may be viewed as “a political appointment”. For all Lyons’ strengths as “an unorthodox economist”, it won’t…

Build a savings safety net The Office for Budget Responsibility reckons that a no-deal exit would plunge the UK into recession, shrinking the economy by 2% and pushing unemployment above 5%. It’s important, then, to build “a rainy-day fund in an easy-access savings account”. Aim for three months of income. Plan for a falling pound Baroness Altmann, a former pensions minister, suggests buying gold “as a hedge against market meltdown”. Others advise locking cash into a pre-paid currency card, such as Revolut, if you’re planning trips abroad. Beware, though: “you could lose out if a Brexit deal is struck at the 11th hour and the pound strengthens quickly”. Beware “domestic” investments Smaller UK companies with a domestic focus “are likely to be placed under even greater pressure” – particularly those…

Controversy of the week Will he call an election? The last thing Boris Johnson wants, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer, is to be another George Canning – the British PM in the early 19th century whose term in office lasted just 119 days. But Canning had good reason for his early exit. He died. If Boris calls an election before the end of October – the day set for Brexit – and loses it, he’ll have no such excuse: he’ll be “deposited in the dustbin of history as the fool who clawed all the way up the greasy pole, only to almost instantly plunge off it”. So it’s tempting to believe him when he swears he won’t do it. But I don’t believe him. Deep down, he knows the…

Two mental health hospitals run by the Priory Group have been put into special measures owing to concerns about patient safety. Inspectors reported a high number of assaults among patients at Priory Blandford, Dorset, which cares for under-18s. At Kneesworth House in Hertfordshire, for adults, some patients had taken to wearing trainers to bed to stop nurses waking them up by jabbing their feet with keys. The Care Quality Commission has given the facilities six months to improve or face closure.…

“A large number of people appear to be labouring under the illusion that retweeting President Trump and attaching a snarky comment constitutes an act of #resistance. It doesn’t. All publicity is good publicity for Trump. The same is true for Nigel Farage, who owes his high profile to the media’s endless attention. In a recent interview, he laughed about a New York Times headline calling him ‘the most dangerous man in Britain’. ‘I loved it,’ he said. ‘I’d have paid for advertising like that.’ It’s easy to feel helpless about the state of the world. But there are simple things we can do, and unfollowing Trump is one of them. Most of the world isn’t on Twitter, and when his tweets are elevated into mainstream news, we’re doing his work…

Bosom buddies who threaten our security Simon Tisdall The Guardian Something ominous took place over the Sea of Japan last week, says Simon Tisdall. For the first time ever, “China and Russia joined forces to mount an air patrol using long-range bombers and spy planes”. This was alarming militarily, because both Japan and South Korea accused the intruders of violating their sovereign airspace and scrambled fighter jets to intercept them. But it’s even more alarming from a geopolitical point of view: the growing collaboration between the two military powers – both convinced liberal democracy is obsolete – could spell the end of American supremacy. And Donald Trump’s clumsy and belligerent policy initiatives – his ego-trip summitry in Korea; his punitive trade war – have only served to cement the alliance.…

A drastic plan to save our coasts We may be able to prevent a catastrophic rise in sea levels – but we’d have to “sacrifice” Antarctica to do it. So say the scientists behind a preposterous proposal to pump billions of tonnes of snow onto the West Antarctic ice sheet, in order to prevent it breaking up. The scheme would involve building at least 12,000 wind turbines, which would power scores of giant pumping stations. These would make it possible to extract seawater (which would probably then have to be treated in desalination plants) and pipe it uphill into snow cannons, which would blast trillions of tonnes of snow over the shrinking ice sheet. While the scientists admit the project would have a potentially catastrophic impact on the world’s biggest…

Britain’s summer: the hottest on record Newspapers illustrated the story with their usual pictures of children laughing in fountains, and crowds on beaches, but there was nothing fun about last week’s heatwave, said Janice Turner in The Times. As the mercury hit 38.7°C in Cambridge – the hottest temperature ever recorded in Britain – most of us were more stressed than smiling. In London, it felt “not like a fine day in Provence, but a hellish one in Dubai”, and the heat, followed by storms, wrought transport chaos, as rails buckled, overhead power lines sagged, and flights were grounded. For those employed in modern shops and offices, air conditioning will have made the working day manageable (even if their commute was a “dangerous ordeal”); but pity the rest, sweating…

Tour de France: is Bernal the future of cycling? “Welcome to the Egan Bernal era,” said David Walsh in The Sunday Times. On Sunday, the 22-year-old Colombian, having sealed victory in the Tour de France the day before, rolled into Paris wearing the yellow jersey. But I doubt that any of his future victories will be as nail-biting as this, his first. Bernal’s victory capped one of the greatest Tours yet seen: a “truly engrossing” race, unpredictable from the first to the last. In stage after stage, the French cyclist Julian Alaphilippe held onto his lead, only to fade on the final ascent. But in the end, Ineos, the successor to Team Sky, proved that they had inherited the “Tour-winning DNA” of their predecessor: last year’s champion, Bernal’s teammate Geraint…

To The Daily Telegraph The case for HS2 is simple: we need more rail capacity north of London. “Upgrades” and hi-tech signalling will not suffice; we need another set of tracks, which should cater for high-speed trains so that the existing railway can do what it is good at – commuter, intercity and freight services – while long-distance journey times are reduced. Starting in the south is right, as this is where the capacity problem is worst. Starting in the north would add little value, as extra trains could not reach either London or Birmingham on existing lines. As to cost, we must ask: is the development of the northern section dependent on the completion of the southern section (phase one), or is it possible to divert funds to the…

“If ever the exclamation mark of a title could be felt on the pulse, this is a prime example,” said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. With songs full of “capering wit”, a simple storyline and plenty of “folksy, thumbs-on-belts dancing”, Oklahoma! delivers pretty much everything “any summer audience could want”. Yet Jeremy Sams’ staging at the Chichester Festival Theatre is also a “subtly challenging evening”, tackling some of the darker themes of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first collaboration. Opening with the “rapturous” melody of Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’, the show is set in 1906, when a lawless Oklahoma is on the verge of becoming a state, said Sam Marlowe in The Times. We follow two parallel love triangles in which the male characters vie for the affections of bright…

The whoops and cheers when Marvel Studios unveiled its roster of forthcoming blockbusters at last week’s Comic-Con convention in San Diego were absolutely deafening, said Neil Smith on BBC News. Everyone was hailing it as a great “step forward for diversity”. In Thor: Love and Thunder, Tessa Thompson will play Valkyrie, Thor’s right-hand woman and Marvel’s first openly gay superhero. Valkyrie’s “first order of business”, Thompson told the convention, will be “to find her queen”. Then comes The Eternals, about a group of superheroes which includes a deaf member (to be played by the deaf actress Lauren Ridloff), another played by Pakistani-American actor Kumail Nanjiani, and a third by Mexican actress Salma Hayek. Hayek told the audience she was proud to be “part of a movie that is going to…

A three-metre-high sculpture that was deemed “too popular” for its original site, on the North Yorkshire Moors, has been officially unveiled at its new home. Sean Henry’s painted bronze, Seated Figure, was installed on the top of Castleton Rigg in June 2017. It was scheduled to remain there, looking out over Westerdale, for five years, but owing to concerns that hordes of art-lovers trekking up to see it were causing soil erosion, leaving behind litter and parking their cars on verges, it was removed in April, and now sits, overlooking a valley, in a quiet corner of the 500-acre Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield. The sculptor, whose other works include Walking Man in London’s Holland Park, and Seated Man at Woking station, said he had designed the figure for the…

Programmes Panorama: Stacey Meets the IS Brides Stacey Dooley travels to holding camps in northern Syria where she meets Western women who joined Islamic State. Mon 5 Aug, BBC1 20:30 (30mins). The Conjoined Twins: An Impossible Decision Documentary following conjoined twins from Senegal, who have defied expectations by living to two-and-a-half. Their father now has to decide whether to go ahead with a highly risky operation to separate them. Mon 5 Aug, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Sacred Wonders From the temples of Angkor Wat to the Shaolin Temple in China, this series explores how faith has driven people to extraordinary acts of creativity. Wed 7 Aug, BBC1 21:00 (60mins). This Way Up Six-part comedy starring comedian Aisling Bea. After a “weeny” nervous breakdown, TEFL teacher Aine (Bea) tries to get her…

Order a coffee in Vietnam and you’ll find a generous spoonful of condensed milk sitting at the bottom of your glass, say Chow and Alex Mezger. We’ve taken that idea and turned it into a moreish and rather sophisticated summer lolly. Mocha Vietnamese-style lollies Makes 8 lollies 50g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids) 300ml of hot, strong coffee 120ml condensed milk you will need: 8 x 60ml ice-lolly moulds and sticks • Using a fine grater, grate the chocolate into a small bowl and pour over the hot coffee. Stir until melted and add the condensed milk. Mix until the colour is an even milky brown, then pour into moulds. • Put in the freezer, upright, for an hour or so before poking an ice-lolly stick into each mould.…

The Standard Kings Cross, London This hotel – the US chain’s first in London – occupies a former council building opposite Kings Cross station. It dates back to 1974, a time when this area was far from a dream location, says Jenny Coad in The Sunday Times – but “what a spot” it is now, with its views of St Pancras, the Shard and the London Eye. Inside, you could be in “an Austin Powers movie”: there are vibrant “retro touches everywhere”. Rooms have huge beds and windows that block out the traffic noise. A tenth-floor bar and restaurant opens in September. “If it’s as sexy as the Top of the Standard” in New York, then “we’re in for a treat”. Doubles from £199; standardhotels.com.…

Stylish Dutch actor who starred in Blade Runner Rutger Hauer 1944-2019 The Dutch actor Rutger Hauer, who has died aged 75, will be remembered in particular for his role as the replicant Roy Batty in Ridley Scott’s 1982 cult hit Blade Runner. At once violent and philosophical, Batty rails against his artificially shortened lifespan – and in the moments before he dies, utters some of cinema’s most cherished lines. “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe,” he tells Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard after saving his life, though Deckard has been sent to terminate him. “Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to…

Even by Mike Ashley’s “bizarre standards”, Sports Direct’s annual results statement last week was “extraordinary”, said Christopher Williams in The Daily Telegraph. Having delayed the results until the stock market had closed, Ashley ensured that pundits were expecting bad news – yet this was an “omni-shambles”. In short order, “the tracksuit tycoon” announced that problems at House of Fraser (the cornerstone of his plan to build the “Harrods of the High Street”) were “terminal” and he shouldn’t have bought it; that he had sacked his finance director; and that none of the Big Four auditors would work with him. But the bombshell – “buried” under plans to subject CEOs and CFOs to “voluntary” drug tests – was news of a “surprise” £605m Belgian VAT bill. After all that, Ashley’s announcement…

The week’s best shares Anglo American The Times This diversified miner’s recovery has been driven by radical streamlining and an overhaul of its operating model. Earnings are up 19%, and strong growth prospects should drive higher production and profitability. Buy. £21.87. ConvaTec Group The Sunday Times The medical equipment-maker has had a “bruising run”, with two profit warnings and supply chain problems. But a new CEO, new products and cost-cutting make it well-placed to benefit from a growing market. Buy. 150.1p. Moneysupermarket.com  Group Investors Chronicle The price comparison platform has benefited from increased energy-switching and soaring home-services revenues. It boasts “solid” results and a decent dividend hike. Forward yield 3%. Buy. 400p. Mpac Group The Mail on Sunday Profits at this fast-growing engineer of packaging machinery are “significantly” outpacing expectations,…

Since the 1960s, sunbathing topless has been seen in France as a sign of female liberation – but according to a new survey, it’s rapidly falling out of fashion. Only 19% of French women now go topless, down from 43% in 1984, and only 2% of under-35s do it. Anxiety about sun damage is one reason, but younger women are also said to be fearful of photos of them topless being circulated online. Jousting may still look medieval, but at English Heritage events this summer, VAR (video assistant referee) technology will be used to make sure the contestants’ points are recorded correctly. A spokeswoman explained that being sure their points were fairly won was important to knights, for whom “honour is everything”.…

A poll by Opinium for The Observer, conducted after Boris Johnson became PM, found that support for the Tories has risen by 7 points to 30% since the beginning of July. Brexit Party support has dropped by the same amount, to 15%. Labour support, meanwhile, is up by three points to 28% at the expense of the Green Party. A YouGov poll for The Sunday Times, however, put the Tories at 31%, with a ten (rather than two) point lead over Labour at 21%. The Lib Dems were on 20% and the Brexit Party on 13%. 94% of GPs say that short appointment times put patients at risk. 37% believe they have prescribed the wrong course of treatment owing to only being allowed a ten-minute consultation. Slater & Gordon/ The…

Walking on the Moon Charlie Duke is one of only four men alive to have walked on the Moon, says Mick Brown in The Daily Telegraph. As a member of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972, he spent three days on the lunar surface, where he weighed just 60lbs in his space suit. But low gravity was not as fun as it might look. “It was easy to lose your balance, because of the uneven terrain, and the fact you can’t see your feet,” he says. He found that to walk on a flat surface you had to do a little jog, rocking back and forth, but he nearly came a cropper when he and John Young decided to stage an impromptu Moon Olympics. While jumping around, he found himself…

More than 100 people gathered last week for the annual World Nettle Eating Championship in Dorset. Last year’s winner ate the leaves from 104ft of stems; but he has since retired, leaving Tony Jeyes to be crowned by eating just 58ft. Although nettles are often used in cooking, contestants at the 30-year-old event near Bridport must eat the plant raw. Their hands get stung, their lips swell, and their tongues turn black. “You wouldn’t catch me doing it,” said Michael Wareing, an ear, nose and throat specialist. “But if I were to take part, I would take painkillers first.” The crime-writer Patricia Highsmith was so attached to her garden snails she once took 100 of them in her bag to a party so that she’d have someone to talk to,…

UNITED STATES Dark secrets hidden in the Nevada desert Los Angeles Times These are exciting times for UFO believers, says Jonathan Turley. Some two million of them have signed up to a Facebook campaign, pledging to gather together on 20 September and storm Area 51, the tightly guarded military installation in the Nevada desert that’s long been rumoured to contain evidence of alien life. And they’re dead right that the government is trying to hide something, but it’s not UFOs: it’s evidence of official negligence. In the late 1990s, I was the lawyer representing workers at Area 51 who were suffering from mysterious health issues and wanted to know what chemicals they’d been exposed to at the site, which was conducting highly classified research into next-generation aircraft systems. They claimed…

Before they even hatch, seabird chicks are alert to danger, and can communicate it to their nestmates. Scientists from the University of Vigo in Spain collected 90 yellow-legged gull eggs and, in the days before they were due to hatch, exposed a sample of them to a recording of a gull giving a predator alarm call at random intervals, four times a day. They observed that in response to the call, the chicks became less noisy, and started to vibrate within their shells – and that a separate group of eggs, which were nearby, but which had not been directly exposed to the alarm, then mimicked these vibrations. They also found that, once hatched, all these chicks were more likely than those in a third control group to crouch down…

Rock stars are supposed to want to live fast and die young – but by his mid-20s, Mick Jagger was already worrying about his old age pension. According to the Rolling Stones’ accountant in the early 1960s, Jagger thought there was no way he’d still be performing in late middle age, and was anxious to make financial provision for his twilight years. “We started chatting, started talking about pensions,” recalls Laurence Myers. “[Mick] said, ‘after all, I’m not going to be singing rock ‘n’ roll when I’m 60’. We roared. It was just a ridiculous thought.” In one of his first acts as Leader of the Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg has instructed his staff to use imperial measurements in their reports, give all non-titled men the suffix Esq., use double spaces…

Gareth Bale is “Britain’s most successful footballing export”, said Sam Dean in The Sunday Telegraph. In the six years since he joined Real Madrid for s100.8m – a world record at the time – he has won the Champions League four times, as well as a Spanish league title. Yet the 30-year-old Welsh forward has become his club’s least popular player. Mocked by his teammates for his obsession with golf – they call him “the Golfer” – he is also booed by the fans. Last week, Madrid’s manager, Zinedine Zidane, suggested it would be “best for everyone” if Bale left, but the player’s proposed move to Jiangsu Suning, a Chinese club, has fallen through. So he looks set to spend another season at a club that doesn’t want him. Truth…

Ed Sheeran: No. 6 Collaborations Project Atlantic £10.99 “Talk about an A-team,” said The Sunday Times. Ed Sheeran – “the Brit who can’t stop writing hits” – has delved deep into his “superstar-stuffed” contacts list to come up with an album all but guaranteed to flood the charts. Blending his unfailingly catchy hooks with dancehall, rap, Latin and R&B, this is “streaming catnip”. It works best when Sheeran bends to his guests. In Take Me Back to London, he adopts the “mischievous” style of Stormzy, and he gets angry on Antisocial with Travis Scott. However, the talents of Cardi B and Camila Cabello are wasted on the “Latin-by-numbers” track, South of the Border. Given his mega-stardom, Sheeran still seems oddly obsessed with his perceived “outsider” status, said Michael Cragg in…

In her native Finland, the painter Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1946) is a household name, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. Indeed, so “widely fêted” is she amongst her compatriots that fans “flock” to see her paintings in Helsinki galleries, and in Tammisaari – a coastal town where she spent her later years – “a museum, a street and a café, not to mention a cake, are named after her”. Here in Britain, however, “she is barely known” – a state of affairs that this revelatory new retrospective sets out to correct. The show is the first solo exhibition of her work to be held in this country, and it is not to be missed. Bringing together around 65 paintings dating from every stage of Schjerfbeck’s long and varied career, it tells…

Best books… Tim Lott The author and journalist picks his five favourite books. His new novel, When We Were Rich, is the sequel to his 1999 Whitbread prize-winning White City Blue. His memoir, The Scent of Dried Roses, is a Penguin Modern Classic Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, 1961 (Vintage £9.99). This is a book about male pride and vanity, and the prison of suburbia – two of my own favourite themes. Richard Yates, like F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a master of burying complexity within simplicity. At one level, it is a story about a couple who want to escape the daily drudge. At another, it is a deep rumination about feminism, denial and cowardice. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, 2004 (Bloomsbury £8.99). Susanna Clarke’s remarkable tour…

Orchid-spotting near Port Talbot It’s a curious thing that “one of our most valuable patches of conservation land” should be a stone’s throw from “the industrial heart of south Wales”, said Kevin Rushby in The Guardian. From the 1,300-acre Kenfig sand dune reserve you can see the stark outline of Port Talbot’s steel plant in the distance. It is a strikingly incongruous sight, but it’s not the reason to visit this wild and beautiful place, which is chiefly known for its orchids. There are so many colourful flowers on the dunes, it’s not always easy to pick them out. But between April and September you might see up to 15 species, including the tiny fen orchid, which is found only here. Kenfig attracts botanists from around the world, yet where…

Cobham: will it fall to US private equity? Even Cobham’s most loyal fans probably wouldn’t describe it “as the jewel in the crown of the defence and aerospace industry”, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. The Dorset-based firm – founded 85 years ago by aviation pioneer Sir Alan Cobham – has struggled with its balance sheet lately. Yet it was still sad to hear that it’s poised to fall to private equity, its board having agreed a £4bn takeover by the US firm Advent, “which will seek to flog” it, “either whole or in parts”, in the next five years. Cobham has some “excellent kit”: it specialises in air-to-air jet refuelling and recently supplied equipment to Nasa’s Mars space laboratory mission. Indeed, having recently balanced its books, the company…

Tricky times call for a lucky Chancellor David Smith The Sunday Times The new Chancellor, Sajid Javid, appears “eminently suited to the job”. But perhaps the more important consideration, says David Smith, is whether he’ll prove a “lucky” Chancellor. In particular, will he get to “enjoy something denied to both his predecessors: the return to normal rates of productivity growth”. This matters. Had UK productivity grown in line with its long-run trend, it would be about 20% higher than it is now, translating into a £5,000 boost for annual private sector wages, or an 18% pay rise for most ordinary Britons. Productivity is certainly due a revival. In fact, there’s “a sense we could be on the edge of something big” thanks to the prospect, “so far largely unrealised in…

● Squeezed houses “People who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts,” asserted the PM, Boris Johnson, last week. But his “willingness to risk a no-deal Brexit” has sent the pound reeling, said Delphine Strauss in the FT. Sterling fell by some 4% during July, hitting a two-year low of $1.21 against the dollar this week. It has also lost considerable ground to the euro, falling to s1.09. That looks like bad news all round. According to Sir Nick Macpherson, former permanent secretary to the Treasury, “recent devaluations have done little for exports, while unambiguously cutting living standards” by pushing up the cost of imported goods, raising shop prices and “eroding the real value of earnings and savings”. Every British household has been squeezed. The London School of…